


Growing

by kerpow



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aged-Up Character, Alien Biology, Babies, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Grubfic, Grubs, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied Relationships, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Smut, Trolls don't know how babies work, at least I'm pretty sure its mpreg, basically the beta kids are about 20 and the alpha kids are about 23 yeah., sex later, yeah that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerpow/pseuds/kerpow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game has ended and the players are struggling with the new universe and how everything works. </p>
<p>The injuries of the game have healed and all who died in game have returned, including the pre-scratch trolls along with both Dads, Dave's bro and Rose's Mum. </p>
<p>The story is better than my summary I swear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Did you even notice?

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so this is my first fic, like, ever in my life. Please for the love of god go easy on me.

There is a lot to be learned about a completely new universe.  
No one was really sure what they were expecting from winning the game. Sure a mixed universe had be considered, but it was an entirely different thing to be part of said universe. The trolls and humans had 'evolved' in a sense, their species being mixed together in a mess of troll horns and human skin, however, not all of these changes occurred immediately. Upon entry, everyone looked the same on the surface at least.  
The first change, ( other than blood colour and the, uh, downstairs area, ) was facial hair. Kankri had appeared one day with an unusually angry rant in store about how the humans should have warned him, how this was something that he found triggering and how stubble was so itchy compared to the smooth skin that had been there before. John and Jane's dads, freshly resurrected from their in-game death, offered their services and soon became known as the town barbers.  
The second change had been the horns. Karkat looked back on the day john had come to him asking for help, scratching at his head and asking if he had gotten some troll disease. Instead, a pair of orange bumps were growing out of the top of his head. shortly after, the other ex-humans had grown similar bumps, and Karkat had enjoyed briefly not being the one with the smallest horns, excluding calliope, who had retained her frightening fully grown form and had become a protector of sorts, to the townsfolk. Sadly for Karkat, those days were short lived, the human's horns growing longer and more elegant than his own.  
The occurring changes seemed to be strangely specific to blood types, Karkat had noticed. While he and the other ex-lowbloods had begun shaving every other day, the highbloods didn't have so much as a whisker. During one particular morning, John had walked into the bathroom while Karkat was shaving and raised his hand to his own cheek.  
"John what the fuck is your problem now?" Karkat hissed, cutting his cheek due to his lack of practice, not that he would ever admit, John being there had distracted him. Yes. Precisely.  
John lowered his hand without so much as a noise, unconsciously making his matesprit worry with his silence, and left the room. These sort of instances where happening frighteningly often with John, and Karkat had begun to fret to himself.  
With the changes slowly occuring with their biology, a community decision had been made that every week all townsfolk had to report to the town auditorium to report any changes, and be briefed on any new information that John, Jade or Roxy had found in their biology area of the lab building.  
It was these weekly sessions that Karkat had quickly learned to dread.  
He dragged his feet into the theatre styled room, trudging to an upper corner taking a seat beside Sollux who nudged him affectionately as the two began their weekly bitching session before Rose took the stand as the overseer of the community.

"Thup KK, the univerthe find a new way to torment you thith week?"

"Ugh, does it ever fucking not? None of the building is getting fucking done seeing as apparently the construction is the last thing on everyone's mind, like they'd rather know why their disgusting faces are going fuzzy rather than protect ourselves from the Gog fucking diseases everyone is carrying by living in the same fucking building."

"Eheheheh, would you rather be thleeping on the floor with everyone elthe like we did the firtht week?"

"Yeah you're welcome for getting your own block and everything you fishfucker, I feel your gratitude just spewing out your seedflap."

"Fithfucker? You make it thound like fithprince is actually giving me anything at all." 

"Gog forbid Ampora isn't leaping at the opportunity to get on your bulge. I don't even want to fucking know."

"No, actually, have you notithed the highbloods acting funny? I think there might actually be thomething wrong here, he'th been...." Sollux looked towards the lower corner or the room, were Eridan was currently engaged in his own bitch session with Feferi."Dithtant." 

"Well shut the fuck up so we can find out."

Rose elegantly strode to the centre of the stage to begin her announcements of the day, building: next to no progress, farmland: next to no progress, exploration of the planet: next to no progress and finally biology and psychology, surprise surprise, some actual information.

"Attention everyone, You may have noticed that , of course, all the warm blooded hybrids have grown facial hair, however we have begun to inspect if the reason the coldbloods cannot is due to any hormonal changes that may affect us."

'So John and Ampora have been missing out on their peach fuzz beards? Oh what a fucking crisis.' Karkat thought grimly, his attention waning slightly.

"However," Rose continued, "this is not the most dramatic change we have encountered. We have found some news that may be troubling to some, especially, ex trolls, who are most unfamiliar with the process."

Karkat watched Sollux lean forward out of the corner of his eye, You'd think that having some psychic ability would make him worry less, plus his moiralligence with another psychic who could actually get some insight into the Gog damn future, but who knows with that guy, he'd been acting moody and dramatic since the game ended. Basically a perfect match for the violetblood. Rose gestured widely around the room, 

"I'm sure you have noticed the lack of midbloods here today, this is the topic I want to raise with you, but don't be alarmed, they are under great care for the time being, as we are currently looking into the problem to confirm our suspicions regarding the hormonal change. unfortunately, this mean that all midbloods from olive to teal are unable to do any physical labour. There will most likely be confirmation by the end of the week."

Bullshit. BULLSHIT. The construction was already a crawl having all the grist being oh so generously donated to the labs, at this rate they were never going to move into their own separate hives. Karkat basically fumed for the rest of the lecture and then some. It was frustrating times like these that Karkat wished desperately that the black and ashen quadrants were still a thing, especially with John's strange way of acting.  
Karkat let that thought brew in his mind, he'd always thought of a black quadrant as a fairly important detail, but in this new body... Even those with existing kismesis had broken up because it just didn't feel quite right anymore. It had been a change that had become a sort of point of interest to the Lalondes, who, with the great help of Rose's mother, much to her surprise, had used it to create new notes on how their new species might reproduce.  
Karkat's train of thought stopped dead as he tripped over a figure lying on the ground. Cursing to himself, Karkat twisted on his side to find out just who was lying down on the rocky footpath of all places.

"Sup."

Of course the springbok-horned Dirk Strider would do that. What wouldn't he do to fuck with people in the laziest way possible.

"Dirk what the fuck is wrong with you. Lying on a walkway is almost as dumb as your- wait what's wrong with your voice?"

"Nothing's wrong with it." Dirk mumbled, his face red from some previous activity that had left him breathless.

"Dirk you sound like you got your bulge caught in a grinder. In fact one might say it sounds like shame. You didn't happen to lose a strife with your ectorelative, did you?"

"We're calling each other brothers now and for your fucking information Dave's gone on an aggression bender. Energy out his ears and such. Fucking up everything in sight. I got beta me on him for now but not sure how long that'll work for."

"Huh, you obviously didn't use your think pan hard enough to just ask him, or is that another one of your infamous Strider family taboos?"

"Nah, I know exactly what's wrong. Had a look at some of the bio lab reports while no one was looking, of course, the biologists always doubt, but I know exactly what those pheromone levels mean."

"So what is the fucking issue here? You're speaking in science."

"His girlfriend is in heat, and they aren't letting him go anywhere near her."


	2. Faceplant biology lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god this chapter is too SHORT.

"So?"

"You have no idea what 'heat' is, do you?"

"Why would I?"

Dirk sighed, stretching his neck up off the ground to look Karkat in the eye.

"Heat is something that occurred in some species of earth mammals, although it didn't occurr in humans, to help them reproduce. At first they where thinking it was just Jade because of her canine parts, but other greenbloods started wandering in yesterday, as if entering the new universe had caused an anestrous phase until we had settled in to our new bodies. Anyway, the female midbloods have started entering an estrous cycle, wherein they will release pheromones for two different purposes; one being to find a partner, the other to let said partner know that it's time to mate. If Dave was around Jade right now, they'd probably be going at it like rabbits."

"That's fucking disgusting. What about Rose? She'd be around Kanaya if she's in the labs wouldn't she?"

"Nah, Rose has made a point of staying as far away from the labs as possible, Mama Lalonde is just giving her the reports."

"Where is Rose anyway? 

"Gone to test out her new sweet gills with Ampora, I'm pretty sure. Now while I love our little chats, my legs are going numb with your ridiculous weight."

"Fuck you and your slim build. Fuck you very much. I needed to talk to them anyway."

Karkat lifted himself off the rocky footpath, taking great care to put as much weight on Dirk as possible, to find out what exactly they weren't being told about the situation. It was a bit of a walk to get to the lake, not that anyone seemed to mind. It was peaceful there, being further away and blocked out by so many trees it was quieter than the nearby beach, freshwater too, ideal for the new lavenderbloods and magentabloods to learn to use their new gills without choking on the salt. 

Karkat mumbled to himself while he shifted through the trees. Although he was grateful he was no longer the only one with his candy red blood, it irked him to know that there had been only one human who had remained level to him, John and his dad had become level with the Zahhaks, Jade was bringing back lime blood and the other humans are new blood colours all together. It wasn't as though the hemospectrum existed officially, hell, even Equius and Eridan had given it up if only for their matesprits, but there was still the matter of biological differences. Despite how little the changes had affected him, it was a completely different situation for his matesprit.

Although he would never admit it, he missed John. He missed how happy and open he was.

As Karkat approached the lake, he began to hear the voices of the seadwellers. Eridan and Feferi seemed to be speaking to Rose with a kind of hushed urgency.

"So you mean to say to this is goin to happen to all a us? Don't you think that you should a told us about this kinda shit when the lab first finds it?"

"Eridan don't be so glubbing impatient, the biologists need to be shore of what's going on before they tell us anything in case somefin changes!"

"Feferi is right Eridan, we have to confirm our suspicions before telling anyone anything, if any of these process goes awry, it could cause severe emotional or physical damage. You've seen how unsettled John is by all of these changes, we don't want him to stress any more than he already has, having being among the few humans who will change so dramatically. We're planning to take him out of the lab soon, he can barely work knowing all of the gruesome possiblilities his anatomy may have in store for him."

"Well what about Kar? John's been actin all shady and gettin all upset and can't give him a fuckin reason as to why, plus I know Sol wants to know, but at least I can say in all truth that I know fuckin nothin about what the biologist are tryin to pull. Kar doesn't have shit to go on an it's pretty obvious Kar ain't gonna be able to do much for the town when he's got his own fuckin issues to deal with."

Ah, Eridan, Such a considerate douchebag. Well, Karkat didn't exactly not want to force Rose to explain what's going on.

"Yes Rose, what about Karkat fucking Vantas, planning on leaving me in the dark for the rest of my pitiful life or actually give me some gog fucking information about my tragically introverting matesprit."

"How long have you been standing there, Karkat?"

"Long enough to know you and the biologists have been hiding shit. I already know about what's happening to the greenbloods."

Rose gave Karkat a defiant glare. She knew she'd been cornered and Karkat didn't appear to want to leave without an answer, by the quiet chatter of the two ex-trolls behind her, it seemed they wouldn't either. She had no choice.

"Karkat, you are not to give any information I give to you away, and that goes for you two as well." She started, shooting a glare at the aquatic hybrids, who had been given a fair reputation as the town gossips. "It's true, the midbloods have gone into heat. We don't know how long it lasts, but we suspect that it should be over in merely a few days. We were lucky we found Jade when we did, we're not sure if we could afford that right now. There is too much stress on the townspeople, and a mammalian birth is a delicate situation, if there is a complication, we have no means of fixing it. If the offspring......."

Rose closed her eyes for a moment, looking oddly sad. Humans and their emotions, well, ex human seadwelling mutant anyway. 

"If something were to happen, we could lose Jade."

"And you thought that our wriggler think pans ain't able to glubbin handle that? What if it happens to someone else? We could lose anyone at any time!"

"Eridan, please! Do you want everyone to be as upset as John is? Rose is reely just trying to do what is best for us!"

"I still don't fucking see what any of this shit has to do with John." Karkat snarled, wishing Rose would just fucking EXPLAIN something already.

"Uhhh Rosey love I thinks we have a biiiiiit of and issue."

The four turned to find Rose's mother, beta Roxy, staggering into the clearing, panting and looking less than her usual classy self. Obviously having run straight from the labs with news.

"What is it mother we were discussing something rather important."

"Nah honey this is more important. Lil' dog girl has run off, the bugger managed to use her space powers to get out of the containment lab, we prolly should look for her before she get herself into any eh, mischeif now."

Rose stood frozen in the water, glancing between Eridan, Feferi and Karkat. 

"Well, fuck."


	3. Chapter 3

Obviously the escape of a sex-crazed space witch who had fucked off from the town with her matesprit was necessary cause for a Gog-damn meeting.

Rose stood at centre stage of the auditorium, looking strangely calm as Karkat and Eridan ushered the remaining stragglers into seats while dodging any questions thrown their way. Karkat gritted his teeth with the effort to not claw off the faces of the town occupants, who had no sense of urgency, speaking in hurried whispers and gossiping rather than sitting quietly so that the situation could be accurately explained. What he would give to be co-leader of a group that wasn't completely idiotic when it came to an actual emergency.

In just a few minutes the crowd had managed to contain the entire town population with the exclusion of the midbloods. The chatter in the room dying down to a dull roar.

"Attention everyone! We have an emergency situation. I'm afraid that we have not been entirely honest with you all in regards as to why the midbloods have been placed in isolation in the labs. We have made some disturbing discoveries on the reproduction, this particular part of which comes from earth mammals, but is not to be taken entirely as truth, as we have yet to test these theories ---"

"GET TO THE POINT LIGHTWENCH! EEHEHEHEHEEHHEHE!"

"MITUNA YOU WILL SIT DOWN AND STAY QUIET IF YOU WANT TO SEE LATULA OUT OF ISOLATION ANYTIME SOON."

The room went dead silent. While Rose often spoke with authority, she would rarely raise her voice or threaten anyone in any way. Seeing her out of sorts had made her even more intimidating for the entire town. In short, it was very, very serious.

"John, will you please explain the situation concerning the midbloods?"

John rose slowly from where he was sitting in the front row, shuffling towards Rose in order to exchange a few concerned whispers. Karkat leaned forwards from his standing position by the door, trying to catch onto a few words.

"No John just tell them about the green bloods...... olive to teal....... no you don't have to tell them anything about the coldbloods that isn't a concern yet."

Karkat felt his heart drop as John shifted to take the centre area of the stage. He was still hiding something, wasn't he? Something to do with his blood. What could possibly be so troubling that he couldn't even trust his own matesprit with what he knew? The redblood lowered his head quietly. He couldn't even help.

"Ok, as you know the blood ranges between olive and teal have been put into isolation in the labs . This is due to a cycle that our new hybrid species appears to be going through, beginning with this blood range. The process is pretty commonly known among humans because it happens to lots of earth mammals. It's called going into heat or being in heat."

The ex human hybrids in the audience gave some startled murmurs, while the trolls sat blinking at one another, oblivious as to what any of that meant.

"Now I get that the trolls probably don't know what that means, so I'll give you a quick rundown. The person going into heat releases pheromones that tell them and their partner that it's the ideal to for them to... uh.... mate."

"WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! MATING!!!!!!!!"

"Ok Vriska that's one of the more disturbing things you've said. Anyway there will be a proper lecture when we are completely sure of how the entire process works but basically the individual in heat, along with their partner will get an intense bout of....um.... urges..... of the uh.... sexual nature. Anyway they will basically be incredibly aggressive to anyone who isn't their mate, even if the other partner isn't present---"

"Thank you John that is all we need for now."

"But why---"

"Sit down John. The point to telling you all this is because Jade, the limeblood who was first to enter the heat cycle, has used her space powers to escape confinement and has fled the town with her boyfriend slash matesprit; Dave Strider."

Cue the entire auditorium bursting into a large cacophony of panicked voices. 

"She's run away?"

"What's going to happen to them?"

"Where could they have gone?"

"Are they going to be gone forever?"

"ENOUGH!" Karkat screamed at the top of his lungs with as much authority as he could muster.

"LISTEN UP YOU NOOKSNIFFING SHITFUCKS, THE REASON YOU ARE ALL HERE IS BECAUSE WE HAVE TO GO FIND SOME HORMONAL RAMPAGING IMBECILES WHO WILL MOST LIKELY TRY TO ATTACK YOU BECAUSE THEY'VE LOST THEIR FUCKING MINDS. NOW IT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED IF YOU COLLECTIVELY PULLED YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR OWN ASSES FOR A SECOND IN CASE YOUR THINK PANS MIGHT HAVE AN ACTUAL IDEA OF WHERE THEY. MAY. FUCKING. BE."

The crowd went silent for a while, the townsfolk looking between each other, sharing glances of confusion. After a few minutes of near silent whispering, Aranea rose from where she was sitting in the middle row.

"Forgive me if I am wrong, but doesn't the muse of space have the ability to find players if she so chooses? I understand that she lives slightly apart from the town now in her own small building, what with not being able to handle crowds and everything, originating from her upbringing and antisocial behavior that is strict to her species, although she seems to get along just fine with individual people. Maybe it would be worthwhile to form a small team and approach her?"

Rose and Karkat glanced at each other, they hadn't really considered asking Calliope to use her space powers, it had been a pretty touchy subject since the end of the game and Calliope's hut wasn't exactly close, but there didn't seem to be many other options at this point other than going out to search for them on foot after getting Sollux to hack their electronics to see if they had mentioned any place they might be. Neither of those options seemed particularly favorable, they may as well go with the lesser of the two evils. 

"Ok so if we need a team, we'll need to have thought it out. Dirk senior, you are our best fighter in hand to hand combat, so we'll need you in case anything goes fucking haywire, which it obviously will. Serket sisters, we'll need one of you in case we need to make them go to sleep in case they try any funny business with their powers to get away from us. John, we'll need you as our biologist, co-leader and flyer. Everyone else for the love of Gog don't leave the village, there is a chance, even if it's fucking thinner than Sollux over there. If they return, you are to message me via trollian. Alright? Let's get this over with."

The walk to Calliope's hut would take at least a day on foot, seeing as not everyone could fly and John's powers could only lift two other people for a few seconds. The end result was that Karkat and Bro were on foot while John and Vriska checked their progress from the air. Karkat gazed upwards towards John and his moirail and wondered vaguely if there was anything troubling Vriska, the Serket and Peixes sisters all seemed ok with their new bodies, well as ok as everyone else had been when shifting into an entirely new species. The only people who seemed to be having any sort of emotional struggle was Ampora, which was in no way surprising, and John. Karkat wondered vaguely if it was the same thing bothering them. Eridan may have lost his genocide complex, what with feeling what dying was actually like, but he was still overly dramatic and made a big deal out of his problems. Karkat's mind wandered back to Sollux's conversation; He'd been distant. That was certainly a change of pace for the seadweller, normally he showed any issue he had to Sollux, if only to complain, not to mention the fact that the two were pretty much sex addicts. If Eridan wasn't even allowing Sollux physical contact..... Something was very wrong indeed. 

Karkat continued to flip through the possibilities in his mind until it was time to set up camp for the night, the four settling around a fire pit that Dave's brother had constructed. To Karkat's surprise John had chosen to sit next to him, althogh a bit further away than he would have liked.

"Soooooooo John, feel like explaining why exactly your little family decided to run off?"

"I explained it to everyone earlier Vriska, it's a set of hormones that our new species produces in order to reproduce properly."

"How come the greenblood are the only ones affected then John? I think there's something reaaaaaaaally suspicious going on here. Have you been hiding things from us?"

"I have some other theories that I'm trying to confirm, but I have to be sure before I tell anyone, so we all are on the same level and there's no confusion or rumors or anything."

"I get the feeling we'll know soon enough anyway. I've been meaning to ask as well, how is our species supposed to reproduce with no mothergrub around? I get the hormones will make them go at it, but what are they supposed to do with their pails?"

"The most likely situation is that our species will reproduce similarly to humans but seeing as our reproductive organs aren't human anymore I'm not entirely sure how this whole ordeal will work out."

"Well then, how do humans have grubs?"

John fell quiet, staring at Vriska for a few moments before giving a backward glance in Karkat's direction. 

"I'll give everyone the rundown when we get Jade back, for now let's just get some rest for tomorrow."


	4. What's pregnant?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok this is a slightly better length. This time a little more on John

The group reached Calliope's hut in the late morning.

The building was the size of a small house, which seemed even smaller when compared to the cherub's adult height, and rather primitive, being made from wood. It was only a temporary solution after all, as she was trying to phase herself into their society to stop herself from becoming overwhelmed. 

John seethed with jealousy. unlike the trolls or humans, Calliope was able to transport herself to the new universe without changing species. She had no dramatic changes to her body other than simply becoming an adult. Still, jealousy would have to wait for now. The group had come here with a purpose in mind, they had to retrieve Dave and Jade. 

"KNOCK KNOCK YOU GARGANTUAN MONSTROSITY, WE NEED YOU TO HELP US."

The door of the hut creaked open by a few inches, exposing a sliver of green before opening to expose the adult cherub's truly intimidating form. She'd grown her wings, white and feathered, along with her cheeks being coloured a solid green. It served as a pleasant reminder to the people that her brother was unable to return.

"Oh, hello everyone! I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you where visiting, what do you need help with?"

"A few of our friends ran off, I think you know the ones. My sister, the other limeblood, and Roxy's ectoson."

"Ah yes! Dave and Jade! Why do you need my powers to locate them, surely if they were lost Jade could return them with her space abilities, could she not?"

"Errrrrrrr, yeah. The thing is, they don't exactly want to come back. It's just that they don't know what they're doing! They've gone a bit nuts and we need to get them back before they do anything they will regret."

"Well, normally I wouldn't force them to do anything the didn't want to do but I guess considering the circumstances I could teleport them back here for you?"

"That's what we were hoping you would say."

"Alrightey then, stand back everyone! I'm going to need quite a radius, seeing as they've managed to get fairly far away from what I can detect."

Karkat nodded over to Bro and Vriska, signalling they should take their positions. Vriska raised her fingers to her temples to force Jade into a sleep so they couldn't teleport away as soon as they returned and Bro retrieved his katana from his strife specibus, should Dave try and fight. With those two in position, Calliope began to focus her powers. The grassy knoll outside of the doorway began to glow with a flickering green light, the dark silhouettes of the two missing hybrids beginning to fade in and out of sight before a white flash. Instead of two young adults, poised for a battle as they had expected, they'd received an unconscious Jade, dressed in a loose white shirt and underwear and Dave, dressed in his god tier cape and pants, looking more grumpy and irritable rather than downright furious. Dave wobbled slightly on his legs, giving a pathetic growl towards his aggressors. Seeing that there was no real threat, John took a few cautious steps towards his sleeping sister.

Dave's expression twisted into an ugly scowl, the disorientation of being transported and exhaustion somewhat forgotten as he stood firmly between the blueblood and Jade. At least until he fell into a crumpled heap with a glowing scorpio symbols on his head. 

"Vriska when on this unholy timeline did you decide putting Strider to sleep was what you should be doing."

"Oh shut up Vantas, he may have been tired but he still had a strife specibus and unrivalled speed."

Bro returned his katana to his strife specibus and interruped the argument with a slight southern drawl to his voice.

"Now miss green, if you wouldn't mind, It seems we'll need a way to get back as soon as possible."

"Oh, yes of course! Be sure to visit again soon!"

The entire area flashed away from their vision, being placed dizzy in the centre of the small town. Bro, as the Striders often did, promptly dissapeared form sight, leaving John, Karkat, Vriska and the unconscious pair of hybrids. While Vriska and Karkat continued their earlier argument, John decided it would be best to give the limeblood a once-over before taking her back to the labs. He lifted her shirt just slightly, occasionally looking back to Dave's sleeping form should he awaken, and ran a hand across her abdomen, pressing down in various spots. Right over the space where her uterus would be if she where a human, there was a solid, definite bump.

"Holy fucking shit." He said flatly, causing Vriska and Karkat to go quiet and look at him.

"We're too late."

Of course, three meetings in one week was pushing it and people were beginning to lose their patience. At least, John thought to himself, this would be the last one for the week. All bets were off, no matter how much it would distress it would cause the group, no matter how many trigger warnings Kankri decided to lay down, it would be a lot worse for this ordeal if o one knew what was going on and a baby just appeared suddenly. Emotional and mental scarring be damned. 

Speaking of Kankri, the older redblood had been elected, much to his joy, to actually give some trigger warnings beforehand. John looked over to the area where Karkat's relative was standing, currently arguing with Rose as to what trigger warnings could be presented. Karkat stood and centre stage, trying to convince everyone to 'take a fucking seat' and being generally confused about everything. John felt a heavy feeling of guilt in his stomach, he wished he had told Karkat earlier but he'd been so messed up about it he couldn't bring himself to find the words. He hated what was going to happen to his body and he wasn't entirely sure if Karkat wouldn't hate it either. Bluh. Whatever happens, what needs to be said needs to be said.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the townsfolk began to settle themselves (even the two older Lalondes, who had left the lab to find out what the commotion was about) and Kankri took the stand. John couldn't help but giggle a little as the audience of hybrids visually deflated. 

"Hello everyone, we have been called here today in order to discuss the matters of our changes in biology of our species. As such, I have been permitted to give the following trigger warnings; Body horror, alien biology, sexual references-------"

As expected, the trigger warnings went for solid ten minutes before John had to user Kankri away from the stand. A few people even cheered as he did so.

"Ok everyone, I know you're all sick of meetings but it's about time we told you what is actually happening. Again, not all of our theories are for certain but we may as well let you all know. Jade Harley, the limeblood who escaped captivity two days ago today, has fallen pregnant."

The crowd was silent for a while, the human guardians shared worried looks, Rose gave a sad look to John, Jane's jaw fell open, Roxy dropped a clipboard she was holding, even Dirk looked a little disgruntled. The ex-trolls, however, just looked confused. After a while of complete silence, Tavros spoke up.

"This may not be, the smartest question but, what is pregnant?"


	5. faceplant-free biology lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I am sorry this took so long, I have assignments due >8  
> Here you go though you get John's problem revealed and my views on hybrid anatomy.

John sighed, this wasn't going to be an easy concept to wrap their heads around. If Kanaya weren't in the labs she would be able to explain it better to them, seeing as her caring for the mothergrub and her medical knowledge would have come in handy. Then again it wasn't as though he could really blame them for it, from what he'd heard about Alternia and Beforus, there wasn't exactly a priority to breed any creature that wasn't a mother grub. Well there were hoofbeasts, but that would mean consulting Equius. Ugh. May as well start from scratch.

"Pregnancy is when a baby, or wriggler, we aren't sure which yet, grows inside its mother. During the time the baby is inside the mother, the mother is referred to as being pregnant. It was the way mammals on earth reproduced, seeing as human were mammals, this is the side we were basing almost all of our theories on our species' methods of reproduction. In humans, the process took nine months. However the similarities between human and our new species are pretty wide from what I've been able to gather."

Meenah raises both hands in from of her in a stopping gesture. "Hold up one glubbin second, so there's a little grub just, floatin around in this girls guts. How the fuck did it get in there? Is it a parasite or somefin?"

John facepalmed. "No, the baby is contained in a special sac called the uterus, found in the carrier of the baby. The baby itself is formed of uhm, genetic material."

Of course Kankri had to leap up. "TRIGGER WARNING SEXUAL REFERENCES"

"You already tagged that one chief." Cronus chuckled from beside the redblood, tugging gently at his red turtleneck to coax him back down.

The older Vantas sits back down, grumbling to the violetblood. It was impossible not to wonder if anything was going on between the two. It seemed unlikely given Cronus constantly wanting all sorts of attention and Kankri opposing romance, well, anything public really.

John sighed, although it seemed like an appropriate thing to be curious about given the circumstances, he really, really, really didn’t want to know what those two did in their spare time. Whelp. Time to bust out a diagram up in this bitch. John smirked to himself a little as he turned on the projector plugged his usb into the auditorium computer, illuminating the white wall at the back of the stage.

“Hashtag, sexual imagery”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kankri gritted his teeth.

“Ok so as you all know, everybody in our hybrid species has a bone bulge and a…” 

John inhaled deeply, cringing a little. There was one thing in particular he despised about his new body.

“……a nook.”

“SHELL YEAH WE DO!”

“Meenah sit down. Anyway, humans had only one or the other, the male with a bulge, the female with a nook. We had different names for them of course, but they serve a similar purpose. The point of it all is the function of these two organs in when used for reproduction. Traditionally for humans, the bulge would be used for transferring the genetic material of the male parent into the nook of the female parent.”

“EEEEEEEEUGH!”

“OH MY COD.”

“I AM SO TRIGGERED.”

“HEHEHEHE THEY LITERALLY FILL THEIR NOOKTH!”

The chorus of disgusted moans and jeers continued for several minutes before, thank gog, Vriska spoke up.

“So humans aren’t bothered by pail because they don’t use them? They use each other?”

“Yeah, I guess. They don’t conceive every time though, there are methods for preventing a baby from forming. So, uhm. Sex for pleasure is a thing.”

John tried not to notice how almost everyone in the room visually relaxed at that.

“Anyway, there are some different biological sexes now, in tradition, earth female mammals might have experienced what is referred to as heat. This being the reason the green bloods are contained in the labs, if they mated during this time and in a certain way, their bodies would retain that genetic material in their bodies. Jade currently has this material stored, I’m sure if you looked close enough you could see it, maybe she’ll let you touch it or something. Although it is enough to form a baby, it isn’t a baby sized bump. Over the time of pregnancy the bump will get bigger and bigger, forming a baby or grub. The offspring will most likely be born live and not in an egg, at least, that is what we’ve assumed due to how the baby is carried. We’re also pretty sure it would resemble a human baby, but a grub is still a possibility.”

“Tho a hybrid in heat can still fuck ath long ath they don’t do it a thertain way. Care to elaborate on that?”

EW. SOLLUX. WHY.

John directed himself to the diagram on the wall, drawn frighteningly well by Nepeta under John’s description. He pointed to a grey bulge on the wall, a colour scale from red to yellow beside it.

“This is a warm blood bulge, these colours have been identified as a new unique gender and for the most part take the place of the human male in that they aren’t able to be carries of offspring, despite having a nook. First, the warm blood would need to receive genetic material from its partner’s bulge, who for the purpose of explaining we’ll say is a---”

Don’t say blue, Egbert. That is too close to home.

 

“---cold blood. Once the warm blood has received this genetic material, it is mixed internally to be released by their bulge. Now, when the warm blood becomes…. Sexually excited, the ridges on the top and bottom of their bulge become bigger and firmer as they fill with blood, as well as the head of the bulge. This is because inside of the nook there is a sort of wall that needs to open in order to get the slurry of the mixed material into the uterus, rather than straight into the bulge as it happens with the warmblood. This can only occur if those ridges on the bulge rub against similar ridge like protrusions on the inside of his partner’s nook. Once the muscular wall opens, the bulge enters and twists---“

Cue every warm blooded in the room to cringe and hiss quietly under their breath. 

“Triggering the release of the mixed genetic material, holding itself in position due to the shape of the head against the inside of the wall.”

Cue every warm blood looking back at the wall with renewed interest. Rufioh spoke up from where he sat, barely loud enough to be heard, but in the odd silence of the room, it was the only noise to be heard.

“So in order to reproduce, it has to be a complete mating.”

The ex-trolls sat in silent awe of this revelation, much the confusion of the humans. John looked at the Lalondes, hoping for some explanation. Instead, receiving some confused shrugs. 

“It might help,” Rose said cautiously, “if you could tell us what a complete mating is.”

Rufioh shared a shy smile with Horrus, who looked away, bright blue. 

“A complete mating is when both parts are used at once. It’s the ultimate show of love in a matespritship over pity. Not many trolls found partners like that in their life time.”

Rose gave a warm smile to the crowd.  
“That would be a reasonable explanation for why our new species is incapable of blackrom feelings. That is very romantic indeed.”

“Love makes motherfucking grubs. A true miracle.” 

Gamzee swayed gently in his chair as he spoke, forgetting the point of heat entirely. Aradia raised her hand from her seat on his side.

“I have a question. Only the warm blooded and midblooded trolls have ridges. How come blue and higher don’t have ridges if they need them to get their partner the pregnants?”

John cringed. He’d been hoping to put off the topic of the new sexes, if it had caused him so many emotional meltdown, it probably wasn't going to go down well with the entire group.

“From what I’ve gathered, Yellow to red are too hot to incubate offspring properly, their biology has changed to suit this and that side of the spectrum is now, for the sake of reproduction, male. They will go into rut when their mate begins their heat. Basically they cannot carry, and will feel intense protective instincts and mating instincts instead of the need to conserve and mate as the carrier would.”

Aradia’s face settled into a cross between surprise and embarrassment. Well, at least she wasn't freaking out. John remembered the moment he’d discovered the gender changes in the labs, specifically the point where he burst out crying and Jake had awkwardly tried to comfort him in vain.

“The second of the three sexes is the midbloods, in particular Jake. Whereas traditionally females would go into heat, Jake is a male currently in heat. However, I managed to get some testing done and discovered that he would go into rut as well, meaning he could both carry and impregnate. The green bloods form a hermaphroditic gender.”

John sighed to himself, trying to push himself to continue at the memory of how well his ectofather had taken it when he had revealed that he could technically play the woman when it came to rearing children.  
“The coldbloods don’t have the ridges because they make up the third sex. The only ridges that the blood colours of cobalt or higher are internal, meaning that the final s-sex, the blue to pink bloods are—“

Breath, Egbert. John looked sadly in Karkat’s direction.

“Entirely female. The external changes will most likely happen either during pregnancy or the first heat and will remain for the remainder of their lives.”

“External changes eh? Does it have somethin to do with the chest nubs the coldbloods got but the lowbloods didn't?”

Rose took the stage, ushering the slightly shaking John off to the side.

“Eridan I would like to remind you the hemospectrum doesn't exist anymore and those nubs are called nipples. Roxy tells me one of the changes you will experience will be the growth of breasts in order to feed your potential offspring.”

Eridan’s jaw fell open and Mituna leaped up from his seat.

“THE AMPORATH ARE GONNA GET THEMTHELVES THOME THWEET TITTIES!”

Eridan looked floored for a moment before composing himself, slowly standing and walking to the stage in the once again silent room. Once he was at center stage he face the crowd, gave a knowing smirk to Sollux and……….

Slowly edged his shirt off while imitating cheesy strip show music.

The whole room erupted with laughter before turning the event into some kind of party, ending up with Eridan and Horrus racing across the stage as they groped their currently very masculine, muscular chests to the crowds delight, while Aradia and Damara stood at either side doing pelvic thrusts and flexing their slim, elegant arms. John felt oddly grateful to Eridan at that moment, although he was an inconsiderate, arrogant fuckup, he often knew exactly how to lighten a bad mood.


	6. Party hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karkat has dirty thoughts and Kankri can't hold his drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy y'all, Have an update! For all you people wondering what song they are singing, you can find it here
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJAWLfdkapQ
> 
> (Also I love the Amporas shhhhhhh.)
> 
> \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karkat trailed off to find John as the crowd dispersed to take their antics to the main eating area, which had pretty much been made into a pub, thanks to the oldest Lalonde. He did eventually find John however, sitting on the edge of the stage while the last few people scurried out. 

Karkat’s heart clenched in his chest when he looked at his matesprit, head buried in his hands, legs sitting still, rather than with the happy swing he normally took on when sitting with them over the ledge of the stage. Karkat sighed sadly, hitching himself beside the coldblood and giving him a gentle nudge with his shoulder. 

“Hey. What’s your deal?”

“I’m not the same.”

Wow ok. That was a more cryptic and loaded response than the young Vantas expected. 

“What do you mean you aren’t the same? No one is the same anymore, we’re a weird mixed breed.”

“I mean I’m not a man anymore.”

Karkat looked down at their feet. So this was what it was about. John had always had some kind of misaligned ideal when it came to his masculinity, even to go to such extremes as to deny he even had an interest in Karkat at all until he tried to redirect those feelings at Vriska, yet that did begin a moirailigence between the two and later Vriska had convinced John to “Just mack on ol’ Karkles already” so all was well in the end.  
Vriska was still a bitch, but they all kind of owed her in one way or another.

Next to him, John sniffed loudly and Karkat realized he was trying not to cry. The cancer pulled John into a tight hug, pulling those sobs out of the blue eyed boy and pressing them into his chest. Karkat continued to reminisce on John’s issues with genders with a little more dirty thinking. 

It wasn’t as if he and John had never fooled around in their new bodies, hell, so long as Karkat still had a nook John was all smiles. He had been fine with having a bulge or as he had crudely referred to it, his tentadick, and had used it to turn the redblood into an incoherent mess more than once. It was strangely human the way John had gone about it and whenever Karkat had so much as gotten near his nook he became nervous and had told his partner he wasn’t ready for that. It was difficult for Karkat to know what his issue was, even though he was still a nook virgin, he had still let his matesprit top him a few times and seemed to enjoy it.

Wow that is not ok to be thinking about while you are cradling your insecure, crying lover you inconsiderate nook worshipper. Karkat rocked John gently in his arms, making comforting sounds while tracing his hands over the elegant curve of his horns that formed the upper curl of his breath symbol, scratching gently at his pointed ears, watching them flick under his claws, and taking in the startlingly light grey, near white of his skin. Eventually, John’s crying slowed down to hiccups and pulled his legs up off the edge of the stage so he could sit to face his boyfriend. Karkat mimicked the gesture and position, sitting with crossed legs to face John in a comfortable silence for a while.

“Do you wanna talk about it in my room?”

John sniffed, nodding his head lightly. Karkat leaned forward, lacing their fingers together and leading them off the stage. They walked silently together down a stony path towards the dormitory block in the blue tinted dusk, taking in the fireflies and trees that lines the paths and framed the clearing in the center. Karkat allowed himself a fleeting thought of Dave and Jade with their human offspring sitting in that clearing, playing around and simply enjoying being alive. He shook his head and focused on his feet, kicking at the grass growing between the stones of their makeshift decorative paths. 

Their hands unlinked for a brief moment for Karkat to enter his password into his door on the long one-story building and Karkat pretends not to notice how tired and worn out John looks.   
They eventually find their way to Karkat’s bed, lying face to face with their legs tangled and fiddling with each other’s hands. John stared dimly at Karkat’s fingers running along the top part of his knuckles with a grim expression.

“I guess crying at not being manly anymore is kind of ironic, huh?” 

Karkat chuckled, a deep rumbling sound escaping his chest.

“If you’re thinking about becoming the new Strider, but it seems Jade has got that covered.”

John let out a blunt bark of a laugh before his smile faded again.

“John, you know you can talk to me about any shit you’ve got going on in your mind, right? I’ll love you either way.”

“It’s just…. Being a dude was part of how I lived. It’s kind of like part of my identity is shifting out of place and I really don’t want to change. We fell in love when I was still a man.”

“You were also still a human.”

“I guess, yeah. It doesn’t help that Jade is having a baby now. It kind of just hit me that I’ll never be a father.”

“You knew that trolls and humans couldn’t cross breed and we still ended up together.”

“Yeah but we were just teenagers. It didn’t matter then.”

Karkat’s entire body froze, John hadn’t meant for them to stay together. He didn’t want what Dave and Jade were going to have with him, he never did. It was a fling for him. 

“So I was just an experiment for what you could’ve had.”

“Karkat that isn’t—“

“No I think that’s exactly what it is.” Karkat lifted himself off the bed and began to pace the room, his voice raising in preparation for his angry tirade. 

“I didn’t mean anything to you did I? You were using me as a fucking experiment so you could just try fucking a man before you settled with a human female and had a perfect sitcom human family!”

Karkat’s voice had raised to a roar, fuelled with betrayal.

“YOU NEVER EVEN CARED THAT I LOVED YOU DID YOU? YOU JUST WANTED TO GET ON WITH YOUR HUMAN LIFE AND TOSS ME AWAY LIKE AN EMPTY BOTTLE OF FAYGO OR SOME SHIT? I LOVE YOU JOHN. I ALWAYS LOVED YOU. WHAT MADE YOU THINK I NEVER FANTASIZED ABOUT US LIVING TOGETHER AND EATING TOGETHER AND WATCHING MOVIES TOGETHER AND DOINGALL THIS CHEESY SHIT LIKE A PERFECT /NORMAL/ COUPLE? I DIDN’T SPEND A SECOND WASTING TIME ON WORRING THAT YOU WERE MALE OR THAT YOU WERE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SPECIES. DID I WASTE MY TIME JOHN? I BET YOU STILL DON’T EVEN CARE.”

With that, Karkat stormed out of the room slamming the door behind him and making his way up to the pub. Gog, if he needed anything at that exact moment, it was a drink.

Sollux and Gamzee rushed out to meet him when he was still slowly trudging up to the main bar, cheering out his name and jumping around excitedly. For a split second Karkat wished he could hate those two, but unfortunately he was incapable of really hating anyone beyond finding them annoying, especially two of his closest friends. 

“KK! Oh thit you have to thee this it’th fucking HILARIOUTH!”

“Bro your motherfucking relative up and got himself all kinds of pissed, fucking of the rails!” 

“You guys are almost as stupid as a lobotomized ostrich with brain damage. I know for a fact that my asshole relative doesn’t drink as part of his bullshit holier-than-thou act. The fucker thinks he’s a saint or something.”

“That’th the thing! We made a bet with Cronuth that he couldn’t convinth him that it triggered the humanth that he wouldn’t take part in their thocial activitieth and he had to abide them becauthe half of them don’t have moirailth! Holy fucking thit I have never been tho happy to not win in my entire life and death!”

“You two are a pair of drunk fucking liar-----“

The two had been leading Karkat up to the bar by his wrists and there he beheld what was possibly the most humiliating yet hilarious thing he had ever witnessed. His ectorelative, wearing only his ridiculous high wasted pants that had been hiked up even higher, shoes and sweated discarded on various chairs and tables, stood on the bar doing a scarily good impression on a human stripper. Karkat’s face was burning at the realization that his relative, yeah admittedly was a pretty amazing dancer, Cronus must’ve taught him that, but the two also looked near fucking identical. And he was shirtless. And running his fingers along the side of Damara’s jaw. And sending sly winks in Mituna’s direction. Great, it was precisely what he needed. He’d love to have everyone assume it was in his blood to be a slutty drunk. Karkat stared, slack-jawed, unable to defend himself when his dancestor finally looked his way.

“Heyyyy look erryone! It’s my lil blood buddy! Come up here and dance with me big guy!”

Karkat leaned to his side towards Gamzee, hoping for a little explanation.

“How many drinks has he had exactly?

“I don’t even motherfucking know my invertebrother. Man must’ve not got his realize on that the rainbow ones have more alcohol in them than normal beers.”

Karkat gave a deep sigh. What the hell, he felt like shit he may as well humiliate himself as well.

“Fine Asshole, I’ll dance with you.”

The crowd of warm and coldbloods cheered and whooped. Kankri raised his arms and silenced the crowd. 

“Now my boy here is gon dance but we gonna convince his to loose the…. The uhhhhh……”

“TAKE OFF THE THIRT GRUB VANTATH!

“STRIP!”

“QUIT HIDING UNDER THAT SWEATER YOU GUPPY!”

“YEAH SHOUTY, LET’S SEE IF YOU INHERITED SOME OF THE INSUFFERABLE’S MOTHERGLUBBIN GLORIOUSLY UNHIDDEN ASS!”

Karkat groaned despite his inward excitement, no one had really paid much attention to him since the green bloods had been put into isolation nearly two weeks ago, and he was one of the leaders after all. After a few moments of everyone in the room chanting for him to strip, he pulled his sweater off and allowed Kankri to pull him up on the bar. 

“Holy crap, Karkat! How could you be so cruel as to hide those abs all these years?”

“Abs, yes, but admire those STRONG arms.”

Karkat tried not to smile, but only managed to repress his full blown grin to a sly smirk and began to dance. He was nowhere near as flexible or graceful as his drunken counterpart (no one should be able to do a pirouette when their speech was slurred, let alone on a raised platform) but he had defined muscle rather than Kankri’s flatter, more slender figure. After a few moments of clumsy dancing, a tune began to play that Karkat recognized and judging by the way Eridan and Cronus had leaped up onto the bar and cleared their throats, they knew the human song as well.

“Walkin around on broken leg!”

The four slung their arms around each other’s shoulders in an odd imitation of a cancan while the others on the ground began to sing along in a drunken, beautiful chorus.

“I can’t get you outta my head!”

“I can’t get you outta my head!”

“You don’t want to know me!”

The entire song had lifted Karkat’s spirits through the roof. He swears on his life he even saw the two Dirk striders laugh when they had hung socks and cups off of Tavros’ horns like “a big bull horned Christmas tree”. The crowd fell into an easy chatter as Karkat helped Kankri off the bar with the help of Cronus and had settled at the bar with a beer, having friendly conversations with Sollux and Aradia and poked fun at Gamzee and Tavros trying to make out without falling over and Eridan and Feferi gossiping loudly. 

“Fuck KK, now we know if we want a hot bod, thome great thinging and thome fucking awful danthing, we know who to call.”

“Yeah Karkat, I’m surprised, you never go out, what’s the big change in attitude?”

Karkat fiddled with the bottle in his hand, despite being reminded, he was in too good of a mood to be upset by it right at that moment. It also helped that he might have been a little drunk.

“I got into a fight with John, wanted to do something that made me feel a minute fraction less shitty.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that Karkat. Can I ask what it was about?”

“Yeah, turns out the bastard said that we got together as a teenage fling.”

“Ouch.”

“KK we’re only 10 thweepth, we could say we thill are teenagerth. Besideth, you thatyed together right? You’ve been together for ageth now.”

It was at that moment Eridan had decided to swagger up to where they had been sitting and clumsily swing himself over his matesprit’s shoulders, resting his chin between the dual sets of horns.

“Hey there sexy, what are you glubbin about over here?”

“I was just saying how John has been really shitty as of late.”

Eridan kind of flopped onto Karkat’s side, peering past the red blood’s fluffy bangs to see his face.

“Y’should be nice to the poor kid ya know, us coldblooded boys been feelin pretty lousy with all these hormones getting us ready to do some baby making.”  
Sollux reached over and pawed at Eridan’s forehead affectionately.

“That why you’ve been tho frigid lately?”

“Yeah actually, get a load a this!”

Eridan lifted the hem of his long sleeved shirt with one hand and used the other to lower the waistband of his hipster pants, revealing his hipbone. The area had swollen, covered in mottled purple bruised and a ridge of bone sticking out in a way that looked downright painful.

“ED what the fuck?”

“Rox said it’s cause our hips are getting wider to fit babies out a there, dunno exactly where they’re meant to be comin out a though. Guess we’ll find out pretty soon what with Jade startin up the next generation an all. Anyway my point is I am drunk enough for it not to hurt as much, ergo my bulge block is over. Now if ya don’t mind I’d like to take my yellow blood away so we can get straight to business.”

“I think it’s fair time you went to bed, Eridan. As much as I’m sure Sollux would like to have his merry way with you I doubt he would be pleased if you passed out halfway through.”

“But Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

“But nothing! Come on Sollux, we’d better get prince charming out of here. See you later, Karkat!”

Karkat waved his friends away as he got up to go hang around with Meenah for a while, considering what Eridan had showed his and his slightly slurred words. Maybe he should cut John some slack. Women were odd, turning into one couldn't be too pleasant.

He didn't remember how he got back into his dorm.


	7. In which Eridan receives a pleasant massage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hrrrrrrgffff I am sorry I took so long with this. Also thanks to everyone who has commented or left a kudos uwu you are all sweeties.
> 
> (Here have some erisol for your trouble.)

Sollux woke the next morning to a very hung over Eridan looking desperately for coffee in his room.

More accurately, he tripped over him. Eridan was simply lying on the floor pressing his face into the cool tiles surrounding the small kitchenette. Poor dude. Sollux had most definitely been there. He nudged the seadweller with his foot, prompting a groan. 

“Grrrrrrrrph. G’way.”

“You’re lying on my floor you dumbath.”

Eridan tried to roll himself over to glare at him, but his body seized up halfway, leaving him on his side in a pained grimace. It became obvious to the gemini that it wasn’t just a hangover that was causing him grief. His breathing was cut short as his bones and muscles ached, midway between their new and old shapes. Sollux knelt beside him, despite what most people in their small village had thought about them, he did love Eridan. Hell what does being public about your sex life have to do with how much you care about someone? The psionic troll ran his hand along Eridan’s side, escaping his inner monologue for a minute in order to focus on the task at hand. He remembered well what he had shown him the other night because hey, it was more fun to have a few drinks and remember that his best friend and his ancestor were dancing half naked in front of everyone rather than getting too plastered. The skin along his hips still bruised and swollen, but the bones had seemed to settle into the skin a little more, rather than jutting out all over the place. Sollux used his psionic powers to lift Eridan over to his bed, leaning him against the wall softer and in a more trained way than if he had tried to use his hands.

It hurt to see Eridan in pain like this. Sure, if he got a papercut or a splinter than the world was about to end but if he was in actual pain he would remain almost silent. As far as Sollux had been told it was a survival instinct to not draw attention to the fact you couldn’t fight back. It seemed a little redundant as land dwelling trolls would scream to their blood pusher’s content when injured, that and among the ex-trolls, Eridan was probably the second biggest after Equius. The two had been very close in height, but Sollux had always been skinny as a rake and Eridan had been built like, surprise surprise, a buff swimmer. Now though, his figure had been twisted, he was hunched in on himself and looking very small compared to his normal regal stance.

“Lie down flat you idiot, I can’t thee what’th wrong with you all thcrunched up like that.”

Eridan glared daggers, but obliged. Stretching his long legs to drop off the edge of the bed and eased his head down, moving a pillow over to support his neck. Sollux lifted his long sleeved shirt in order to get a good look at what he’d been shown yesterday. The skin seemed to be getting better, with two fingers, he pressed at the mound of flesh. Eridan closed his eyes and hissed in pain, his normally handsome features scrunched into what resembled a crumpled piece of grey paper. 

Sollux sighed, wondering breifly what the changes in his sex would bring to him physically. He’d seen since the introduction to the new universe there had been variations in skin tones as compared to the flat grey they all had before. It had come from the human side, it had been made obvious the first times seeing them that they had different colours of skin. Sollux had become lighter, with a few speckle of darker along his nose, similar to ones Karkat had inherited, only less of them. Eridan, on the other hand, had stayed the same solid grey they had all been once. If it had to leave for the sake of the new boy, Sollux would miss it. His chest was still quite broad, but his waist had begun to pull inwards. The muscle looked strained, giving the yellow blood an idea.

“Would it hurt if you lay on your thtomach again?”  
Eridan rolled himself over obediently whist Sollux rolled up his shirt, pressing his hands to the swollen skin.

“Ow, Sol. What’re you doin there?”

Sollux worked his fingers against the bruised flesh, massaging the twisted muscles loose and earning a groan of relief as a reward. It wasn’t unheard of for him to do something like this every once in a while, yet most of the time he didn’t appreciate Eridan telling people about it. The events of the game had long since convinced Sollux that some higher power was out to get everyone he cared about. Maybe if he had acted as though their sex life was the only thing present in public, he could keep his love for the other as his dirty little secret.

Sollux sighed inwardly, taking a break from his inner monologue to just observe. He rubbed his fingers into the seadweller’s thinning sides. Eridan had always had narrow hips and brad shoulders, thick with muscle from the constant swimming and skyhorse riding from his life before the killer game. It was hard to imagine him as a female, despite the new, softened waistline giving an idea to go on with his new shape. He would have an athletic sort of build, not built of slim legs and elegance but something less elegant, maybe similar to Feferi? No, she was too soft, a little chubby over her swimmer’s figure. Eridan would be more like Meenah, similar but more….. raw. Something that showed how hard he worked to feed the population of the town on his deep sea hunting trips. 

Sollux hadn’t realised that Eridan was falling asleep and he was following suit until a loud bang had jolted them both back into reality. The two scrambled to stand up and reach Sollux’s door, cracking it open just a sliver and peeking outside. Karkat stood in the middle of the clearing between all the buildings growling obscenities in the direction of the lab building, the bang having come from that door being slammed shut.

“Can you hear what they’re sayin?”

“Nah, we’ll have to athk Vrithka, be quite though we might pick thomething up.”

As the screaming died down and Karkat began to trudge away towards his room again, the two emerged from behind the door. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty serious. No one actually leaves when Karkat starts ranting at them, maybe he’d actually upset someone. The two had agreed to go and find some answers, Sollux would wait for Karkat to calm down before talking to him and Eridan would go find out what was going on in the lab. The yellow blood tried not to notice that now he wasn’t in as much pain, Eridan’s hips had a sort of lovely swing to them they didn’t have before and failed miserably.

Not that he minded, of course.


	8. Antlers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhh I was really tempted to add drawings for this chapter, if only I knew how to.

Karkat may have been a bit of an ass last night, but John was overreacting to some ridiculous extreme. 

 

Vriska paced around the ectobiology sector of the lab, caught up in deep thought. On one hand, she wanted to side with her moirail, on the other, John was being a bit of a wimp. Yeah, Karkat had come back wasted and said some stuff, but it wasn’t bad or anything, John had just felt compromised and had hormones raging all over the place and felt out of place, seeing as most humans went through a much lesser change. She wondered briefly about the two human lusii that were related to John and Jane before remembering that they had arrived as teal bloods, just under the cut. She even spared a moment of thought for Equius before dismissing it as the grossest fucking thing ever. It was hard being the greatest moirail of the new world, it was hard and nobody understood.

What about the lavender and the two pinkbloods? Surely adjusting to being a seadweller was more intense than changing sexes wasn’t it? Oh, wait, humans could swim anyway. Vriska wrinkled her nose in jealousy at that, even though she would’ve been able to learn to swim in this new body, she’d decided after her first trial in the water that no, learning to swim was just insanely hard. John knew how to swim, learning to swim just had to be easier than changing sexes.

The cerulean blood went through the events of last night through her head. She had originally headed over to tell the midbloods about Kankri’s dancing skills before remembering that she wasn’t allowed into the isolation rooms because, you know, isolation, and eventually decided on teaching one of Equius’ robots dirty words when John had busted through the door. 

“Fucking idiot.” He mumbled to himself before turning to his moirail.

“You will not believe what Karkat just did.”

“How did you know I was in here?”

“I saw you from Karkat’s room and I followed you, but that isn’t the point! Ok, so I was in Karkat’s room, waiting for him to come back after throwing a hissy fit, right? Anyway, I’d been waiting for him to come back and apologize for so long my ass was numb and I was just about to leave when lo and behold, the fucker is drunk off his face. I’m obviously upset and want him to apologize and do you know what that moron says?!”

By this point John has tears streaming down his face and is struggling to get his words out without screeching. Vriska fought with herself to either pap her moirail into oblivion or to not get hit by his flailing gestures.

“He said Terezi had let him! What kind of thing to say is that?!”

“John come here for a sec.”

John grumbled and shifted towards Vriska, stopping about a foot away from her. He must’ve expected her to hug him or something. He seemed more disappointed than anything when she decided to smack him upside the head instead. 

“Ow, Vriska what the hell!”

“John, you know I love you as much as a badass motherfucker like myself can feel such an emotion, but you’re kind of being a grade-A douchebag right now.”

“What? That’s ridiculous I haven’t even done anything!”

“Yeah, see? That’s where you’re going wrong. You haven’t told Karkles shit about what you’re going through, even though pretty much everyone knew he was worried about you because your acting is shit. That and you were waiting for him to apologize to you because you hurt his delicate little feelings. Besides, you know he and Terezi ended their relationship a loooooooong time ago. What, did you expect two teenagers with no supervision, full of hormones not to fool around every once in a while? God forbid your male matesprit topped his female ex matesprit.”

Vriska couldn’t really remember the rest of the night, only John had been fully chastised eventually and they both had to shoo Feferi away from the labs every once in a while. She seemed pretty messed up in the head about not being able to see Nepeta other than the outside windows, which she’d tried to break more than once. Something about breaking apart as sprites messed them up. Vriska had felt something similar towards Tavros once upon a sweep, it ended pretty fast though, deciding rather to ignore each other as much as possible. She’d guessed they hadn’t felt as strongly due to their sprite exploding due to their colliding personalities. 

In the morning, Karkat had come over to speak with John about last night. John had thrown a tantrum and had locked himself in the lab they both had stayed in over the night. Vriska had coaxed to the best of her ability and was just short of mind-controlling him into just explaining to Karkat what the hell he was so mad about when Feferi appeared outside the lab window with a forlorn expression on her face. Oh, right. The greenbloods had been kept isolated from each other and everyone else throughout all of their heat cycles. They probably want to get out of those little rooms. 

“John? I know you’re ace at sulking but I don’t think we should keep everyone locked up for much longer.” 

“What? Oh, shit! They’re still isolated!”

John turned and opened a door in the far corner of the room, leading him into a long corridor lined with doors on one side. Vriska moved to the door and watched as John went down to the furthest door, punching in a code that only he, Karkat, Kankri and Roxy knew. There was a series of loud thuds as the inner workings of the lock came undone, allowing John to pull the heavy door open. On the inside, there was a small, plain looking room adorned only with a bed, a shelf with various medicines on it, a laptop and a minifridge. Perched on top of the bed, Jake English stared blankly at the ceiling. 

“Jake? You’re good to go buddy, get your laptop and head off to the other alphas, they’re probably waiting for you by now.” 

“Cor blimey, I’d reckoned that growing up in the tropics would have prepared me for a little boredom. Never thought I could’ve been so wrong in my entire life!”

Jake gathered his laptop into his arms and shit a grin at Vriska down the hallway, making her cringe a little. She doubted she’d ever get used to seeing Jake and Jade with their new, enormous, dangerous looking horns. John had said that they weren’t going to attack anyone with those horns of theirs, but that didn’t make them any less threatening, especially when coupled with the same large, sharp front teeth that John had.

“Come on you moose-headed old man, what’s taking so long?”

John laughed cheerily as Jake smiled and bustled past him into the main area of lab and out the door towards the main clearing in the village. John continued in that same fashion for all of the separate rooms. Vriska was silently amazed that there were enough of the small rooms for all of the individual greenbloods they had, Meulin was released next, followed by Porrim, Latula, Terezi and Kanaya. Behind her, Vriska heard a small whimper. Feferi had wandered in and was staring at the last door expectantly. John noticed and motioned for the seadweller to stand by him as he opened the door.

“Nepeta? Feferi’s here, you’re all good to go.” 

The little cat girl shot out of the room into the heiresses arms, John laughed and lead Vriska away by the arm. Looking behind her she saw the two hug each other tightly, almost crying with joy. Damn those two for being so adorable all the time. She didn’t even feel a little envious that she never shared that bond with Tavros. Nope, not jealous he ended up with Gamzee, not even a little.

Not at all.

John brought her back to reality as they entered the clearing. Chattering quietly to each other for a while, they watched the green blooded trolls meet up with each other again and talk excitedly to their friends and family. Dully, she noticed their horns. While John and Jane had gentle curves to their horns, Jake and Jade had long horns covered in spikes. She’d asked about them before, apparently they had resembled earth creatures known as “moose” and “deer”. Those terms hadn’t meant much to Vriska until Sollux and Equius had invented a way to download the internet from the destroyed universes using their old husktops and she was able to look the animals up.

“Hey John?”

“Yeah?”

“How come Jade and Jake don’t have the same horns? Don’t they have the same relationship as a human father and daughter? While, I’m on a roll here, what about you? Shouldn’t you have the same as them as well seeing as you are Jade’s human brother?”

“Oh, I guess as a troll you wouldn’t have needed to know much about inherited genetics right? That kind of explains why Karkat knew about ectobiology as well as Kanaya, seeing as he has red blood---“

“John.”

“Oh right sorry. Jade has two parents, as do all humans, so she has inherited Jake’s horns while I have inherited Jane’s. They aren’t completely identical like alpha and beta Dirk’s though, cause all humans have a mix of their parent’s features. It’s how our species didn’t die out, because the two more adapt adults would have even more adapted kids.”

“Will their grub be a mix?”

“I guess so, seeing as it needs genetic material from both parents in order to form.”

“Ew, that’s gross John. I don’t wanna know about their pailing habits.” 

“Well you did ask!”

John laughed and Vriska allowed herself to smirk. Maybe if she got him in a good mood, he could stop pouting and sort things out with his shouty matesprit and the world could pay a little attention to her problems for a change, like how Eridan seemed to not need rest from his constantly bugging her to find out what the morning kerfuffle was about, and the fact that she, on the border of female blood, kind of wanted to know more about these heat cycles that could apparently overtake her at any random moment in time. In the meantime though, she listened contently as her suddenly more cheerful moirail yammered on about nothing.


	9. In which Karkat chickens out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IIIIIII'm the asshole who gets sick instead of updating, it is me. 
> 
> Here have Karkat not knowing bout babies

Much to the relief of everyone, they carried out their duties in a pretty close resemblance of normal after the whole fiasco. The exception of course being Jade and Dave. Karkat would never have breathed a word of it to a soul, but he was curious about the to-be parents. 

John had explained that Jade’s bump would slowly grow over time, or at least, that was what he had guessed. By the end of that conversation he had stuffed a pillow (courtesy of Porrim, made in captivity) up his shirt and was speaking in a poor imitation of his sister’s voice. It had been hilarious, yes, but now was a time for seriousness. Jade had been prohibited from working and her space abilities were sorely missed. Dave had insisted he stay with Jade instead of working as well, at least until Karkat reminded him he didn't even work in building anyway, he could do as he fucking well pleased as far as Karkat was concerned. Without a functioning space player, they had been left with the two psionic yellows which wouldn't have been that bad if they could be a little consistent and not lose interest halfway through any take they were given. Yeah, efficiency, he wasn't worried about Jade’s health and well-being at all.

The two had taken a spot in the clearing, Jade sitting cross legged with Dave lying to her side, watching the construction and talking quietly to each other. Now was as good a time as any to chat to them, Karkat decided, wandering over in their direction. 

“Now, what is it you two are so generously contributing today to our shit-ridden savage tribe?”

“Hey Karkat”

“What’s up k-dog, have a seat.”

“If you call me k-dog again I’ll feed you to the wild lusii.”

“Ha ha, this place just has white animals, Karkat, not lusii! I’m pretty sure that we’re fit to be parents on this planet, judging by the fact I’m currently growing a baby in my body, or maybe I’m the mothergrub!”

Karkat went silent at that, opting to sit down beside them for a moment and watch the work. Everything was under control anyway, and he could see if something was going wrong from here. If something did eventually get out of hand, he’d move, but for now everything seemed under control. He was simply stuck on what to say now, he hadn’t that that far ahead into the conversation. It all seemed well planned before, but upon seeing the young couple, Karkat’s mind had gone blank. Maybe he was nervous? He never really got quiet when he was nervous though, the whole situation was one giant clusterfuck of confusion in his mind. There wasn't anywhere to start a conversation, so he settled for silence. Fortunately for him, Jade spoke up. 

“So are you gonna spend the whole time brooding or can I ask what you’re sulking about?”

“You’re growing babies.” 

Jade burst out laughing at that. Curse past Karkat and his inability to put together a reasonable sentence. Dave lifted himself to a sitting position, struggling only a little to not hit Jade with his long, straight horns. Gazelle horns, as Karkat remembered the name of that particular earth animal.

“Dude do you even know what babies are?”

“Some kind of monkey? Yes, a monkey that pupates into a human. A wriggler.”

“Close. This thing here—“He paused to poke Jade, who had only just managed to quell her own giggles, on the hardened bump. “—will be our descendant.” 

“Wait, what?”

“You know, a direct line of our mixed genes. Kind of like you and red sweater troll only without the incestuous slurry and time shenanigans. John must’ve explained this to you a million times, dude.”  
“Yeah, but it sounds weird when you say it like that.”

“Whatever man, that’s what it is.”

“C’mon, Dave. Trolls don’t have families, this is all pretty weird to them.” Jade piped up.

“Not as weird as you getting a tentadick.”

“Not as weird as you liking the tentadick.”

“Touche.”

Karkat couldn’t have absconded fast enough. The questions he had been waiting to ask long forgotten, he returned to his duties of supervising (telling everyone how they were fucking up) the construction of the new storage building. The Zahhaks, Striders, Captors and Pyropes had been steadily making a new large building with the intent of preserving food for winter and supplies for future use. Luckily they had so many hands willing to help out, so this building would be done well in time for what Aranea and Rose had estimated to be the “winter period”. The ex-trolls actually had little to no idea of what earth seasons were, but with the observation of the sun, the moon and the plants around them the humans had quickly discovered that their new world experienced earth seasons rather than Alternian or Beforus. Karkat had tried and failed to hide how impressive it was to see how fast the ex-humans were able to deduce what was inherited from their planet and what was not. 

After some explanation, everyone had understood that it was to get colder in the passing months. Yeah, human timing as well, Alternia pretty much had been bitchslapped in terms of dominance in the new world. The Serket and Megido families had dedicated their time to travelling around and cataloguing everything they had seen and collecting samples for analysis in the labs. Thanks to this, the concept of winter had been confirmed and the small town needed to prepare. The Leijons and Jake had taken to hunting large game, taking the meats to be salted or eaten for the night and the hides given to Porrim and Kanaya to stitch clothing and blankets. Salted meat could only last for so long, thus the need for a way to store it. The current building project had 3 very large rooms, The Pyropes were being an extra set of hands for the day, whereas they normally both preferred to cook or hunt, the lack of Jade’s space powers mean that they needed extra people to cart around the heavy motors and insulator panels the older Striders and both Zahhaks were building to make a freezer and a refrigerator. Mituna sat on the ledge of a wall, one that led from the largest room, the one on the right, hovering panels of insulated materials onto the wall with his re-acquired psionics, placing them in layers along the wall and hovering Latula upwards so she could pin them together. Sollux and Terezi were doing the same to the opposite wall, or were supposed to. What Karkat saw instead was Sollux fumbling and snarling flinging panels around with far too much force than necessary, Terezi dodging the panels flying past. 

“What the fuck is he even trying to do?”

Terezi peered up at Karkat with her sly teal eyes in a way that set his teeth on edge. Christ, she was less unnerving when she was still blind.

“Apparently kill me with a flying sheet of insulation fluff. I tried to ask Mr. Appleberry blast what the big deal was but he’s been really snappy and rude all morning.”

That was very odd. While Sollux was still moody as hell he never kept it up for more than a few hours at a time, afterwards settling for apathy or at worst, get upset. 

“HEY, SOLLUX! WHAT’RE YOU DOING? YOU’LL BREAK THE FUCKING THINGS LIKE THAT.”

“I’M DOING MY FUCKING JOB YOU FAT THACK OF LARD! YOU’D KNOW IF YOU DID THOMETHING EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE INTHTEAD OF FAILING TO HOLD YOUR RELATIONSHIP TOGETHER YOU MUTATED TWIT.”

Ok, wow. That. That wasn’t mood swing Sollux at all. 

Ow.

Terezi sighed, lifting her hand and giving Karkat’s shoulder a squeeze. 

“Don’t let what Mr. Honeybee says today get to you Karkles. Just this morning he told me to blind myself with the blade I used to kill my best friend. I haven’t seen anyone so riled up since Strider when all of us middle-bloods got hidden away in the labs.”

“Wh—Ohhhh, I know what it is. Think you could help me convince him to get down?”

“It’ll be a trial but I think we can do it.”

Karkat sighed. There was too much to do than to figure out more about babies anyway.


	10. Gone fishin'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I allllllmost put sex in this one. Almost. My housemate came home and I chickened out.

Under the water of the nearby lake, Eridan, Cronus, Feferi and Meenah glided gracefully under the water.

The thing called “winter” apparently mean that all those who had previously been sea dwelling trolls needed to spend entire days fishing rather than a few hours and in the days they had spare, teach the Lalondes about their new anatomy or trying to teach the ex-land dwellers how to swim. Well, at least Sollux would paddle around with Eridan now.

As per usual Meenah and Cronus had sped ahead, their time on Beforus hadn’t exactly given them experience when it came to hunting. While they were very fit and were very experienced in the water, they hadn’t needed to catch their own fish on their home planet, unlike Alternia, Beforians had always had steady amounts of food on hand and if one fishmonger was more successful than the other there was less of a chance of them being killed for their catch. Feferi looked towards Eridan, flicking her fins as a signal to her palemate to hide nearby so she could herd a school in his direction. The violet blood obliged, knowing that even though she knew it was best for the townsfolk, she didn’t like killing her game barehanded and with no sylladex, her weaponry would just hinder her. He curved gracefully away from her, moving eel-like to the dark water, guided by the light of his bioluminescent stripes to hide underneath a stone shelf. 

As he waited he looked towards Meenah and Cronus trying to imitate their routine. They weren’t close enough to mess up their attempts, but close enough so that Eridan could see them clearly. He seethed silently as Cronus and Meenah had a hushed argument of who killed and who waited. While he was younger, Eridan was slightly taller and broader than his skinny relative, the difference didn’t look like much when they were trolls, but their new forms were a different story. Cronus had fit gracefully into his wide hips and feminine face shape. His legs were slender, he hadn’t bruised and he moved with poise, no awkward flailing as Eridan had done in the first few weeks. The bruises had faded by now, the most irritating part being that most wouldn’t notice unless they were looking for it. He still wore the same clothes, still did his hair the same way, he still had a deep, masculine voice. According to John, this was meant to be the worst part, but there would be more after his heat that wouldn’t hurt as much, but would change the way he looked and sounded. Of course with the universe against him that would work better for Cronus as well. 

A shock of white in the water above him caught his attention, a school of fish being brought by Feferi was headed his way. Eridan placed his feet on a nearby stone to kick off when they came close enough, a routine well practiced and had brought them a fair share of success. As the first fish’s head came into line with his face, he shot forward, clawing off as many fish’s head he could before they all scattered. After no living fish remained in sight he and Feferi gathered the bodies of the fish and put them inside an underwater net trap and waited in the shadows for any fish that came near to feed on the bodies. It was never a clean, nor an easy job, but it was the best they had, they needed to feed the village after all.

It was around 5pm when the sea dwellers rose from the depths with their catches of the day. The loads had been getting gradually smaller as the days went on, like they would have in the dark season. Jade had mentioned that this was all part of winter, but that had just made everyone worry more. It had been a fair chore, hauling the body trap out of the water and putting the salvageable parts into thick sacks of tanned hide. After all they could use was collected, the catch normally lost about a quarter of what was actually killed, some being too bony or small. They were lucky that the Lalondes had tested all the fish they had caught thus far for poisons and found none, it would have made their job that much harder. Eridan wiped his glasses clean of droplets and looked skywards, the sun was setting at 6mp, about half an hour earlier than normal. Eridan had never been in a human winter but he bet it sucked.

They tied the heavy bags over their shoulders and began the walk towards the buildings, bringing the catch of the day to the cafeteria turned local pub. Luckily, Jane was waiting for them. Out of all the kitchen staff, she was by far the most tolerable, next to Roxy Lalonde Sr., who spend most of her time in the lab with her daughters anyway.

“Hi everyone, how was the fishing today? Any good?” She began, fiddling with the ties on the bags

“Glub, it wasn’t as good as it has been.” Feferi started, looking down at her feet. “On a good day we’d get around fifty we could use, I’m not even shore if we got thirty today. It might have something to do with the winter though, I don’t think we can kelp that.”

Jane sighed. “You can only do your best, and we’re all very thankful. Winter here is going to be harsh, so we’ll need as much as possible, I just hope we can get the freezer built in time so we won’t need to hunt.”

With their job for the day over, the seadwellers disbanded to go back to their own rooms, well, Meenah did anyway. Feferi had flocked straight to Nepeta’s room and Cronus had headed to Kankri’s dorm, either to try to break his celibacy rule or to further apologize for getting him drunk and tempting him out of hiding, Eridan wasn’t sure. He himself decided to go straight to Sollux’s room. He didn’t sleep well on his own since they split from their sprite.

Opening the door using a code he’d long committed to memory, Eridan was surprised to see that Sollux hadn’t returned yet. Normally, the Yellow blood was home long before Eridan was, his energy drained and tired, he was normally let off early. Eridan thought nothing of it, playing a movie on his laptop while he lay on Sollux’s bed. 

After no longer than an hour, Eridan was interrupted from his coffee-making to the sound of Sollux grumbling at the door. 

“Woah there man, we aren’t leaving you along with him for a while yet.”

What? Was that Karkat’s voice? Had Sollux done something? Oh cod, Eridan hoped he hadn’t. It was a bitch to take care of sexually frustrated Sollux, angry, guilty sexually frustrated Sollux would just be awful. He wandered over to the door, slowly pulling it open to reveal a pissed of Sollux, Aradia hanging off his arm, possibly to stop him from punching Karkat in the face, who stood with his arms up in surrender.

“Uh, you lot wanna glubbin come inside or somefin?”

Sollux softened a little at the sound of Eridan’s voice. It would have been impossible for most to notice, only those in his quadrants knew these things when they happened. The three shoved their way into Sollux’s small dorm room, Sollux and Aradia sitting on the bed with Karkat standing to face them. Eridan simply closed the door and watched the three stare each other down. After a few minutes of silence, Karkat’s palmhusk buzzed in his pocket. 

“John’s on his way, he knows the most about this shit so we should have our answer soon. I’ve told him as much as I know.”

“Kar? What’s goin on here?”

Aradia pet Sollux’s hand, a sad look coming over her eyes when he drew away from her.

“Karkat thinks that Sollux is acting out because he’s gone into the male equivalent of heat, I can’t remember what it’s called, unfortunately.”

“Rut.” Karkat said as-a-matter-of-factly.

John arrived in a few short minutes, carrying a chart with lists of symptoms he’d retrieved and a small device that looked like a walkie-talkie with a needle instead of an antenna. He instructed Sollux to sit still while he poked the needle into the skin of his shoulder. The device took a few minutes before beeping and showing a graph that Eridan couldn’t understand. John hummed in consideration. Aradia stirred, worry for her moirail written in her features.

“Is it the rut?”

“No, But you were close. Eridan won’t have enter his heat for a while yet, at least I don’t think. Sollux’s hormones have just spiked. I think it would have to do with if he needed to either defend or prove his masculinity to his mate.”

Karkat turned to Eridan suddenly, apparently having realized something. Reaching out with his hand, gently brushing Eridan’s cheek. Sollux growled. Normally, a troll’s growl was more amusing than anything, however Sollux’s growl was loud, deep, and genuinely threatening. The Yellow blood grabbed the hem of Eridan’s sweater, spinning him around and pulling him into his lap. Eridan hadn’t thought there was a chance in hell a cuddle could be aggressive before. Meh, learn something new every day. He had Eridan facing Karkat, glaring daggers from where his head was rested on his matesprit’s shoulder.

John looked only mildly pissed at Karkat’s display, to Eridan and Aradia’s pleasant surprise. 

“While I’m sure there was a less douchey way of doing that, you’ve figured out our problem. For some reason, Sollux thinks that Eridan or him potential offspring have had their positions threatened. He’s just responding the way his body is telling him to. His mind is still there, so he hasn’t attacked anyone. I think it might be something to do with Jade’s pregnancy. In some earth mammals, the ones that reproduce are in a position of power and so that in order to make him more powerful, he has to show he’s stronger and has a fitter mate. It’s possessive and primitive, but on top of the other hormonal changes in his body, I’m not that surprised.”

“Wait, John what do you mean other hormonal changes? Shouldn’t we have been told about this in a meeting?”

“Aradia don’t give him ideas, I can’t tolerate the fucking meetings.”

“I was going to tell you and your dancestor in private, cause it’s pretty personal stuff, but if you want I could just tell you now?”

“I think that my moirail needs to know what’s happening to him, and Karkat is the co-leader.”

“I told him when this was still a hunch. You remember when I mentioned that the female bloods would become more feminine?”  
Eridan was tempted to point out that it was plainly noticeable that john was more feminine in the face, but decided it wasn’t worth putting him back into the dull mood that he finally seemed to be rising from. Aradia simply nodded in response to his question.

“Well uh, it kind of goes both ways. I figured I could tell you privately and you could tell your ancestor because quite frankly she’s insane and no thanks.”

“So you’re saying I’ll become a man.” Aradia stated with a deadpan look.

“Uh, more or less? I thought you would have noticed the bone changes.”

“I’ve never had wide hips and I dismissed my jaw as toothaches, are there any changes other than the bone?”

“Well, yes. You’ll kinda flesh out during rut, and your voice’ll change. You might grow facial hair, I’m not sure.”

Aradia considered the thought, glancing around the room. Eridan took the opportunity to study her features. She, of all the trolls, had been among the most feminine. It was downright impossible to imagine her in any other way.

“Do you think a beard will go well with my skirts?”

Eridan burst out laughing, the violet blood tried to stop the obnoxiously loud guffaws, he really did. He was nearly in tears by the time he settled down, just enough so that he noticed the tiny upward turn to Sollux’s mouth. Win. 

They settle into telling small jokes afterwards, discussing what changes would happen to Aradia, how she would tell her crazy bitch of an ancestor, how she was going to tell her matesprit “Miss Zahhak” and imitating what their changed voiced were going to sound like. It was nice. It was nice to just hang out as friends and chat despite all the shit they were going through. At least they knew how to joke about it. Eventually, the two red blooded and the blue blooded hybrids decided it was time they take their leave, it was late and none of them had collected dinner yet. Aradia left first with a quick goodbye, Karkat following her, half ranting about how hungry he was. John hesitated at the door for a moment before turning to Eridan. 

“I know we all need to do our duties and get ready for winter, but I think we could excuse it for the sake of his health if you wanted to take a day to…. Uh… Spend some time. With your matesprit I mean.” Poor boy was blushing like nothing in the known world. He spared a glance to Sollux before giving an awkward nod and scurrying away after the other two. Eridan stood and walked to the door, shutting and locking it.

“Y’know Sol, I filled up on fish today, I think we could afford to get dinner a little later.”


	11. Waiting for winter

It only took a few days to finish the storage building once Sollux was….. better.

The freezer was an impressive piece of work, Karkat thought. It definitely big enough to store enough food to last everyone the entire winter and then some. It was just in time too, the weather had been getting progressively colder. The fish and meat had been coming in at a slow crawl, another week or two and there would have been nothing caught at all. Porrim and Kanaya were working at full capacity in order to create more clothes, helped by the recent addition of Kankri, Rose and the Dirks to their group. Kankri deciding to finally leave his room after the incident at the bar, Rose deciding that she was better suited to this task and it was rising in urgency that it be done and the older striders being talented at sewing and having nothing to do until winter was over and the building began again. 

All of those who had been building had made themselves useful when the storage building was completed. Most of the parties had been put on hold until the end of winter, all the preparations were well underway. The team dedicated to discovering had instead used their time to hunt extra game and the small vegetable farm patches had been harvested, a good amount of the population now donating their time to organizing and rationing them and putting them in the freezer. Vriska and the Nitrams had gone in search of berries, roots and bulbs that they could preserve. The Zahhaks were currently building heaters for the dorms while Sollux was building solar panels so that they could preserve what little motor power and alchemized battery backs they had left. Mituna and Jane and John’s fathers were out cutting wood for fire while Aranea and Latula had gone to fetch Calliope from her hut. Tough as Cherubs were, there was no way she would be able to survive winter on her own. 

What was most distressing was the fact that all the finned trolls had fallen sick, leaving Karkat and John alone to work in the labs. The illness they had contracted was not incredibly dangerous, just a casual case of the flu that had gone through the village earlier that the sea dwellers were having a very hard time trying to shake. The Lalondes had gotten away with getting better, having a working basic knowledge of medicine, treated themselves before it because too much of a hindrance. The ex-trolls weren’t as lucky and were spending some time in isolation, the last thing they needed before winter was to have a virus in the cold season. Jade had tried to help out, but John had shooed her away, saying that it was too risky keeping her around unknown chemicals considering the volatile state her unborn would be in. Karkat thought it was ridiculous, her bump had barely grown since she had fallen pregnant. It was apparently going to take a long time, several months, for the baby to be ready to be born. He’d considered that to be a long time for a baby to form, seeing as Kanaya had once told him that it only took two months for an egg to hatch a wriggler. John had been surprised by this, saying it took nine months for a human baby to form and that from the samples he had taken from her, Jade’s baby would develop within five months, if his predictions were correct. It was impressive how much they were able to tell from so little time.

Jade had been acting fairly normal despite the changes, according to John. Karkat, in the meantime, wanted some answers about the way her boyfriend had been acting. Dave had normally been relaxed to a degree rivalled only by Gamzee, the way he had been acting recently had been a complete one-eighty turnaround. He was clingy, for one. The other red blood wasn’t exactly one for public displays of affection and Jade was just affectionate to everyone, giving him an equal amount of her attention as she did all others. Karkat had no idea as to why, but every time he had seen Dave recently, he had been holding her hand, leaning on her or following her around like a lost baby woofbeast. He was always nuzzling or kissing her, and while Jade always returned the affection, it was easy to see it was distracting and slightly irritating. He’d been snappy as well, in particular, Karkat noticed, to Sollux. Interesting. He’d read up on the behavior of mammals, seeing as he was in the lab anyway, and had bugged John about it near-constantly. It was like common sense to humans, concepts like reproduction. Trolls were much different, all they needed to do was pail and be done with it, no strange behavior, no baby bumps, nothing.

Maybe that’s why they had complex romance, to make up for it. 

John had given him a more basic rundown, but the notes he’d written would surely provide. Seeing as all the work that was necessary for the day was over and John had decided to go and visit Jake and Jade, Karkat had felt it was an appropriate time to look over the notes on John’s laptop the blueblood had compiled and look up some of the weird behavior in his own dorm room. Some of it seemed to make sense while others just seemed weird and confusing. He’d understood the jealousy, humans only had one romantic quadrant. They’d managed to get a good handle on moiralligence and blackrom didn’t exist anymore, so the humans weren’t as intimidated by taking on a troll partner as before, but none of this explained Strider being someone’s bottom bitch. The entire search seemed futile, it was all either common sense or complete hoofbeast shit. Karkat growled and closed the windows, exposing the photo of him and John that made up the desktop background. It was a stupid photo, taken when the two were still in the game and were human and troll separately. John was holding on to Karkat and laughing while he flailed, making the photo a little blurry, Kanaya or Rose must’ve taken that photo. While John looked happy, a wide smile taking up most of his face, Karkat couldn’t help but feel a little saddened by the picture. 

They were the same species now at least, he figured his matesprit would be happier about that. Besides, it wasn’t as though his bulge had been lopped off, it just served a different purpose. Karkat wasn’t going to treat him differently, they’d do the same things, and their relationship would stay the same. Why did it take so long for him to adjust? Dave was fine with it, Jake and Dirk were fine with it, hell even the human guardians got over it within about a week. It just made no sense. At least John had felt a little better over the past few days, often talking to Jade about what being a female would feel like or what he would expect. It would take time, a long time. Karkat shut the laptop and wandered over to his bed, letting himself relax and his thoughts to run into different territories.

He could always remind Egbert that he still had a bulge.


	12. Where Karkat and John get alone time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I have been away for so long what is write how do I plot

John had been spending more and more time with Jade recently. Karkat had suspected that it gave him some degree of comfort. As John’s body changed, he must have gotten the idea that he would look like Jade or Jane, however if he had taken up that thought with Jane it would have turned awkward very quickly, seeing as John was a lot closer to Jade and that somehow Jane was less related to him than Jade was. Not that anyone had an idea, but the ex-trolls had less so, not knowing how families actually worked. Karkat had always thought that Jade had definitely looked more like Jake and John looked more like Jane. Guh, humans sure were weird, who even knows how those types of things are supposed to work?  
Oh wait, Jade.  
Guess everyone would find out pretty soon, seeing as those relationships were going to start turning up. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a while yet, if there were wrigglers being hatched left right and center that would lead to too much attention being taken away from what needed to be done in order to protect and provide for everyone, they were getting by on so little, no one had gained any weight that wasn’t muscle since the game ended, some of them had even gotten dangerously thin after some emotional adaption, and some were just too big for the amount of food they needed. Seriously Sollux, was getting that tall even fucking necessary?

At least John had pretty much recovered from the shock of having to change. Yes, it was unexpected and yes, humans often used their gender as part of their identity, so it was fair that he wouldn’t have felt ok with having to change just so their pathetic new species could continue to survive. It would suck, he was dealing with it like a trooper. Karkat’s trooper.

Karkat’s lips quirked up a little at that thought, as much as he had liked him as a human, when they first got together it had caused some issues, John’s being “straight” got in the way, Karkat being frigid, everyone being an ass, and so on. Karkat had often found himself wondering what John would have been like as a troll. Would he be a psychic? A psionic? A mutant? As bad as it had made him feel, Karkat was a little happy with the change. They were biologically suited to each other now, culture was something they would learn. Hell, why not make their own culture? They are a whole new species after all.

Karkat daydreamed about John as a troll for what could have been hours or minutes, only being brought back from his thoughts by the sound of scuffling outside his door. He smiled a little wider as a familiar face filled with buck teeth and blue eyes shuffled though the doorway.

“You look pretty happy,” John shut the door and wandered over to lean on Karkat’s desk. “Did something good happen while I was gone?”

Karkat lifted himself up to a sitting position, a slight blush rising to his face as he smirked at his own feet.

“No, but it can now that you’re back.”

“Are you getting fresh with me, Karkat?”

“Maybe I am.”

John laughed and flopped onto the bed, kissing Karkat’s cheek.

“Gog take a lady on a date first.”

Karkat snorted and pecked his matesprit on the nose. Although he’d been bitching about having his jobs put on hold, he was thankful for the cold weather. It was an excellent excuse to just hang around and watch romcoms under a heavy blanket and maybe do some other stuff underneath that blanket that’d be good too. Karkat closed his eyes and simply felt John breathing next to him for a while, enjoying the feeling of another body against his own. A little cold, like all the blues are, but by contrast to being fever hot, it was a wonderful flood of relief, like standing in the rain on a humid day. Karkat smirked at the thought, as great as it was pailing with John normally, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be surrounded by the cooling sensation, imagined how his matesprit would look like underneath him. It’d certainly be different, rubbing his ridges along the inside of that cold body. Probably even better than normal, all soft and slick and…. wait, bad thought. Bad thought! Abort mission!

“Woah, hello bulge boner.”

Fuck.

Well, may as well make the most of it.

Karkat smirked, reaching over John’s side and gently tugging until he ended up lying on top of him. John’s weight pressed down against Karkat’s chest, hips raised a little, so that he could settle himself in between the red blooded hybrid’s thighs. His clothed bulge pressed against the front of John’s pants, feeling the slight shift of his own bulge emerging too slowly for Karkat’s liking. Reaching up to weave one of his hands into John’s hair and pulling him down into a slow kiss. As sweet as moments like these were, Karkat was impatient, the thought of relief on his mind was making him both excited and nervous should John decide to back out and leave him to his own devices. No, he’d waited long enough, he was gonna get laid Gog damn it! Karkat rolled his hips gently against his matesprit’s bulge still lazily sliding against the confinement of his pants, John only smiled against his mouth.

“You getting a little impatient there, sweetie pie?”

“I’ll forgive you for the insultingly condescending pet name if you’ll take off your fucking clothes already.”

John giggled, pulling away. As fun as it was to rile up the feisty red blood, he’d rather be able to keep his dick another day. Karkat pulled his own sweater over his head while John was preoccupied at the task of taking his hoodie off without catching on his horns, making an obvious attempt to make it look like an awful striptease. In any other situation it would have been hilarious at how unsexy it was, however with the slow, drawn out strokes of John’s bulge against his own, the fact that they were still wearing pants was more of a noticeable tragedy. Karkat raised a hand to stroke John’s side, the white-grey flesh was a sight for his sore eyes as he ran his claws gently down the planes of skin stretched over a soft body he craved now more than anything.

His other hand wandered to where John’s bugle pressed softly against his own, running his knuckles over the lump and inwardly rejoicing at how it flicked a little and how the heir’s breath hitched slightly. Karkat could appreciate John’s bulge twitching and trying to push against the cloth for hours if not for the fact that his own bulge’s ridges were hardening, giving a sense of urgency to the situation and putting a strain on his already limited patience. His fingers moving away from the movement to slide underneath the waistband of john’s pants and underwear, feeling John sneak his arm between them and carefully undo the button and zipper of Karkat’s jeans, giving his boyfriend a few short, sweet kisses while doing so. Karkat edged John’s pants down, letting out a growl. Who even invented pants? He was going to find and murder them. John’s laughed, swinging around to fling his pants off somewhere like the total dork he was. Karkat would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t busy ripping his own pants off. His dark grey bulge was already completely out of its sheath, twisting around on itself. In any other situation it would have been embarrassing, but the idea of doing anything at all with his matesprit after not pailing once for however long made the bumps on his bulge swell and turn red. He needed this now.

John sat still for a second, watching the red blood’s bulge twist and turn in the air as though it could hypnotize him. Slowly, he reached out, watching in a daze as it tried to coil with his fingers. Karkat groaned, rolling his hips against John’s hand. John toyed with him, squeezing and pressing all of the bumps, all the while slowly stroking himself with his other hand. Eventually, Karkat’s short patience reached its end.   
“John,” He rasped “fuck me you idiot.”

John’s eyes finally left Karkat’s bulge to flicker nervously at his face. It didn’t matter how often they did it, he always had a touch of nervousness about him when they pailed. Karkat had never failed to find it sweet, he also never failed to hate himself for thinking so.

“Are you sure? I mean it’s been a while and-“

“John.”

The blueblood bit his lip, stopping himself from babbling stupidly. Karkat shifted so that his nook was touching the base of John’s own smooth bulge.

“I want this.”

John sighed, he was never able to deny Karkat when he was like this, lying beneath his and giving him an awkward, loving, soft smile. He pushed his forward gently, giving Karkat the relief against the almost-burn of his arousal. The redblood groaned, pressing his heels into the small of John’s back. Gog, how had he gone without this long? He rolled his hips back carefully, impatience was in his nature but it wouldn’t bode well for either of them if he went too fast. John thrust shallowly in turn and soon the two began to fall into a rhythm. John bent over Karkat, squeezing his eyes shut as he began to move in earnest, his breath hitching occasionally. Karkat propped himself up on his elbows, the new angle letting him rest his forehead on John’s.

“A-Are you s-sure it doesn’t hurt cause we did this kind of f-fast-“

Karkat would have laughed at his rambling if he could have, but like this he couldn’t manage beyond a low whisper.

“It’s fine. It’s good. You’re good.”  
John whined, moving into Karkat fast and hard now, every stroke moving the both of them closer and close to the edge.

“I missed you.”

Just like that John came undone, his genetic material spilling inside of Karkat, the cooling rush bringing him to climax from his nook in a moaning mess. The two stayed like that for a while, loosely holding each other and their breath returned to normal and the drowsy afterglow began to turn into a gross disaster of red and blue. Both on the edge of falling asleep but too uncomfortable to do so. Karkat nudged John’s nose with his own, rousing the blueblood from his near-sleep state.

“Hot shower?”  
He mumbled, his voice thick in his throat. John looked at him through sleepy eyes, showering together was an old ritual for the two they had started before the game had ended. Neither of them had realized how much they missed it when they stopped due to other concerns.

“Hot shower”  
John agreed with a lazy, content smile.


	13. Winter is here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I'm back and I have missed you all!  
> _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Winter was brutal. 

Kanaya had been working solidly since the end of her heat cycle, endlessly stitching up furs to help provide their large clan with warmth and security and yet, it still was nowhere near enough for the group. For their safety, the entire village had gathered in the auditorium, sending out only those of the warmest blood when absolutely necessary. Jade had become a centerpiece of the room, sitting right in the center while others gathered around her, the cold ones surrounding her in a circle, trying to preserve what little warmth they had with extra clothing and blankets. Next came the midbloods, chattering among themselves, telling lively stories of the game or their lives before. Surrounding them were the warmest bloods, some of them cozying up to their neighbors or playfully messing with each other. If it weren't for the devastating winds and snow outside, one might have been fooled into thinking this was just a friendly gathering.

 

The only ones currently outside the circle were Calliope, Roxy, Dave and Kanaya herself. Calliope’s nervousness around the group was expected, yet it was still a saddening thing to see. She was such a kind, gentle creature, but her life of solitude led her to constant anxiety around other people. Only Roxy was able to get very close to her, despite how eager Calliope was to make new friends, she always seemed to lose her nerve. Kanaya felt for the girl and had a strong desire to approach her herself, to see if she could encourage her to partake in their social activities or even better, assist the group duties with her powers. Unfortunately as Kanaya’s past had proven to her, meddling only made it worse rather than better. 

 

Dave, on the other hand, spent his time scurrying around restlessly. With Jade warm, asleep and content in the pile, he seemed at a loss, despite his tendency to often just blame it on boredom. Kanaya was well aware about the differences between the troll methods and the human methods of rearing offspring, but she knew enough of both to recognize that pregnancy, incubation, hatching and births were all risky processes indeed. As someone who had minimal knowledge about human reproduction, Kanaya had found herself worrying a little, it was obvious that as one of the parents he was not in his best state of mind not having anything to do and therefore, time to think and dwell on the possibilities.

 

Kanaya looked down at the blankets she had been retrieving to put to the side should anyone require extra warmth, placing them on the edge of the stage near the foot of the hybrid pile of villagers. She was one of the few who had a coat thick enough to go outside and retrieve items from storage, if she left now she could get enough food for Jane and John’s fathers and Rose’s mother to cook for everyone on Equius’ portable barbecue well before dark, which would leave her to enjoy the remainder of her night in relative peace. She looked over the group again, checking if someone was without enough blankets or was in obvious distress. Seeing that everyone seemed to be in relative comfort, she started to make her way towards the door.

 

“Hey Kanaya,” Dave called out, swaggering up to her side as she approached the door.  
“Mind if I follow you out? Don’t want to stay in one place for too long, it’s like keeping a bald eagle in a birdcage. The bid old bird is nice to keep around sure but can’t stretch his wings and he’s got some giant ass feathers there.”

 

“Won’t you be cold? You only have a hoodie and no snow boots. It’s incredibly cold outside as I’m sure you’re aware, unless you haven’t been outside this week, which you may not have, no one has really needed to leave except to retrieve stored items.”

 

Dave glanced around the room, disappearing in a flash before Kanaya’s eyes. His sudden displacement no longer unnerved her as it did most, but she had lived with him for three years on the meteor, even if most of that time was used to coax Rose into sobriety, it was enough time to get used to his nuances. He always reappeared in a matter of seconds anyway. Surely enough, he flash stepped back into place in front of her. His poker face out of place stuck in the giant, white fluffy mass of animal skin he had wrapped around himself.

 

“Dave.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“That is an unfinished blanket.”

 

“Yep.”

 

Kanaya shook her head, silently vowing to herself that when they fond a replacement for cotton, she would double her workload in order to give the villagers a very basic sense of style at least. Shoving the heavy doors open, the two stepped outside into the unforgiving cold. Dave muttered quietly to himself, tugging his skins tighter around himself as Kanaya shut the door. The weather had been mostly dry, so there was only a little bit of snow on the ground and there was barely a breeze in the air, yet even walking in her full snow gear Kanaya felt her face going numb. Dave appeared to be worse off, his shiver actually visible, unlike his normal controlled reactions. Together, they began the trudge towards the storage unit, icy grass crunching underneath their feet.

 

“Are you sure you’re alright? I know you assisted Jade in frog collecting in the snow but this weather is more extreme, even if it is quite dry, it’s only the first week of winter and it will get colder and heavier I suspect.”

 

“This is no earth weather,” Dave murmured as Kanaya undid the lock on the storage unit doors.

 

“Why are we even out here again? We don’t have to get food right now. We should just leave it on the ground outside the door in bags, the freezer is like, a billion degrees warmer than the weather out here. Christ I can feel my blood turning to ice.”

 

Kanaya sighed. While she was certainly a patient troll, she had no way to rationalize her companion’s behavior as of late. If he was indeed worried about Jade, why didn’t he stay with her? He’d been pretty much attaching himself to her wherever she went, always pressed up against her side or with an arm draped over her, why detach himself now? When she was most likely to need him? As if he had read her mind, he answered her in an awkward bark of a confession.

 

“I’m scared.”

 

Kanaya nearly dropped the bags of frozen meat and vegetables she was holding. It wasn’t like Dave to admit he was afraid, no, it was more his nature to let his fears pile on until he could turn the feeling into anger. While he trusted Kanaya, he would have told his moirail first, or even his sister. This outburst was unfitting, perhaps even wrong. Before her intense gaze, she really looked at her friend. His expression visible despite his shades. His brow was furrowed, his nose wrinkled and his lips pressed into a tight, nervous frown.

 

“Somethings gonna fuck up Kan, I know it. We don’t know anything about kids, we don’t even know if it’s gonna be a goddamn baby, it could be a worm or something. What if the clown goes psycho again or if the hipster wants revenge or some shit while no one can get away? What if the snow gets too heavy and we can’t get food and we all starve? What if Jade gets sick? What if she miscarries? Oh God, I can’t take that Kanaya I can’t… I can’t handle this.”

 

“Dave, have you spoken to Terezi about this? I think you are having a breakdown and as your moirail I’m sure she could help you—“

 

“Kanaya.” Dave spoke her name so quietly, Kanaya had been unsure it had come from him.

 

“What if she dies having it?”

 

The Jadeblood looked down at the bags in her hands, true, they were scraping by. They all had years of work ahead of them to rebuild their broken-down societies, find a way to recreate the species without inbreeding, all of these newfound valid concerns they all had without offspring to boot. There was a lot to worry about. There was one thing, however, that had kept them all going.

 

Hope.

 

Kanaya took in a deep breath, straightening her back and looking her friend dead in the eyes behind their dark coverings. A newfound spark igniting her faith in the future of their people.

 

“Dave. We have beaten the demon himself, we have survived the impossible and come out of it better creatures. I assure you now that if anyone is capable of birthing and rearing happy, healthy children, it is us. Jade is far too strong to let nature’s way of bringing new life into our twisted reality stop her from thriving. I promise that the world we will make will be better for us and for your offspring. We start here, with this food, we’re already taking care of ourselves and with time, we will do better.”

 

Kanaya smiled to herself brightly as Dave’s lips twisted up into an awkward, but genuine and grateful smile. He took a few bags of frozen meat from her as she filled her arms with bags of preserved food. As they left back towards the auditorium building, they brought with them a feeling of pride. They could best any trial this world threw at them. After all, hadn’t they brought about its creation?


End file.
